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UK Government Solicits Advice On Open Source

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the you-have-til-march dept.

Imran Ghory writes: "The UK government has put out a consultation paper on the use of open source software in government,background research into OSS commisioned by the government is also available, including a comparision of OSS office suites." Check out the formats in which the document is available.

1 of 242 comments (clear)

  1. This is a Red Herring by Waffle+Iron · · Score: 5, Funny
    The UK government wouldn't be in this pickle if they hadn't made a monumental mistake over 160 years ago. If they had seen fit to fully fund Charles Babbage's startup concepts, the British Crown would be the dominant player in information technology today.

    As it stands, they didn't. Babbage went to his grave as a failure despite his pleas for funding, and now the British Government playing second fiddle to some skinny rich geek in Seattle.

    Some say that government ownership would have stifled innovation. Maybe there would have been little progress beyond Babbage's designs. Whiners would argue that computers would be saddled with compatibility constraints like the government regulated telephone system (which to this day remains compatible with 19th century handsets).

    But so what? What would any true geek prefer to have: (A) a gleaming, multi-ton steam powered machine sporting thousands of shiny steel gears, or (B) a stupid beige box cowering under their desk? The answer is obviously A.

    The economics of scale has been directed at the wrong target. Any nerd can easily afford lots of the ugly plastic boxes we call computers, but today even a version 1 Difference Engine would be beyond most people's means. It didn't have to turn out like this. It's a shame, because just like a fine car, chix dig that kind of hardware. (Ada Lovelace, for example. Not bad.) Chix cannot relate to tiny silicon gadgets. I had to expend a lot of extra effort courting my wife using my wits and personality because my computers meant nothing to her.

    I place the blame for the current sorry state of affairs in computing technology squarely on the British government's shortsightedness. Right now, they are just trying to deflect attention from the fact that they dropped the ball.